CHAPTER 16: THE FIRST ELEVATOR
Mara located the original building plans for Whitmore Mill.
There had been a freight elevator beneath the factory.
It connected the chemical storage level to a private loading tunnel.
The elevator had been sealed after the fire.
According to the official report, no one had been inside it.
Evelyn’s recording suggested otherwise.
Noah, Amelia, Mara, and Detective Grant entered the abandoned site under police supervision.
The mill had been fenced off for eight years.
Blackened beams still pointed toward the sky.
They found the elevator shaft beneath a collapsed storage room.
The metal doors were rusted shut.
Noah forced them open.
Inside, the walls were covered with scratches.
Some were simple lines.
Others formed words.
WAITED SEVEN HOURS.
Amelia touched the letters.
Someone had been trapped inside the elevator during the fire.
Noah shined his flashlight across the floor.
A silver necklace lay beneath the debris.
Amelia recognized the pendant.
Her mother wore it in every childhood photograph.
“She was here.”
Detective Grant photographed the evidence.
Noah found a second message scratched into the wall.
WILLIAM HEARD US.
Beneath it, another sentence had been added later.
ETHAN CAME BACK.
Amelia turned toward him.
Ethan had followed them into the mill despite the detective’s warning.
“You knew she was trapped here.”
“I heard someone inside after the collapse.”
“Did you open the door?”
“I tried.”
“For how long?”
“Until my father dragged me outside.”
“Was my mother still alive?”
“Yes.”
The word destroyed the last excuse Amelia had created for him.
“You left her here.”
“I was unconscious when they removed me.”
“You never reported it.”
“My father said the shaft had collapsed.”
“You believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
Noah suddenly called from the back of the elevator.
“There’s another door.”
Behind a broken panel, they discovered a narrow tunnel.
Fresh footprints marked the dust.
May you like
Someone had entered recently.
At the end of the tunnel, a single electric light was burning.
